


Say It Like That

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds, Emily Prentiss - Fandom
Genre: Coming Out, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:45:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9661940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry ;)





	1. Chapter 1

You had to talk to someone. 

Years of bottling these feelings wasn’t good for you. There had to be someone around you that understood. Emily. It was always Emily. Best friends since you started at the Bureau, when she took you under her wing - she’d always been the one you trusted with everything. 

But this. Working through this was something that took a lot of time. You still weren’t there. You had strict parents, so you were scared of opening up to them, and your friends, well, most of them probably wouldn’t care, but it still didn’t make it any easier - not with the way you’d grown up.

As you stared down at your phone, you figured you’d just invite her over this weekend and work it in somehow. See what she thought. If she could make you feel any better. Something. You just needed someone.

Hey Em,

You wanna come sleepover this weekend? I have Ben & Jerry’s and we can order pizza. :)  
A few minutes later, Emily texted back. Pretty much how you thought she would.

Only if the Ben & Jerry’s is the one with the peanut butter core. <3  
Good. So something was set for this weekend. Maybe when Monday came around you’d feel a bit better.

——-

“Okay, Y/N,” Emily said, as she sat down on the couch with a pint of ice cream. “Not that I don’t love pizza and ice cream, but after six years, I think I know when something is wrong - and you’ve been keeping something bottled up for a long time. Spill it.”

Of course she could sense something. Know-it-all, pain-in-the-ass, best friend Emily - amazing profiler, better friend. Why did she have to be so good at her job? “I…I’m gay,” you shivered, rubbing the goosebumps off your arms. “I know I am, but…”

“But what?” she asked. 

“I don’t wanna be,” you replied. You did, but you wanted to live in a world that was accepting of you. People weren’t. Thankfully, most of the people you knew now were pretty accepting, but you’d grown up around people that hated anyone like you. How were you supposed to come to grips with who you were, who you felt you’d been your entire life, surrounded by a world like that? “You’ve seen the crimes we come across involving people like me. I’m afraid.”

“Y/N,” she breathed, putting her hand on your shoulder. “You know that doesn’t matter to me. Or any of our other friends.”

Closing your eyes, you smiled warmly. “That’s what I hoped,” you said, “But it doesn’t make it any easier. I have strict parents; I grew up in a town that loathed gay people. It’s hard to get that out of me, ya know?”

“I know,” she said, scooting over to your end of the couch and enveloping you in a humongous hug. “You are who you are. There’s nothing wrong with you.” She pulled you into her chest and handed you your pint of ice cream. “Eat.”

“Nothing like peanut butter and chocolate,” you said, sliding the ice cold spoon into your mouth. “You really don’t think any differently of me, Em?”

“Of course not!” she exclaimed. “I don’t blame you! Ladies are sexy.”

“Yes they are,” you laughed. “I appreciate the look of men, but I just can’t get into it.” Within minutes, you both had devoured nearly half a pint of ice cream. 

“I get that,” Emily said knowingly. With the relationship she’d been in, it was amazing she hadn’t sworn off men all together. “Look, I can’t tell you how to live your life and what to do, but you have nothing to be ashamed of. Do you want to tell other people?”

You turned around, laying your head in her lap as you continued to dig at the delicious peanut butter goo in the middle of your ice cream. “I do. I just don’t know where to start,” you admitted. “And I’m really afraid of telling my parents.”

“Then I wouldn’t start with them,” Emily said matter-of-factly. “Start with the team. We all love you - just the way you are.”

“How do I do it? Like, just come in one day and say ‘hey everyone I like vagina?’” you asked facetiously. 

Emily snorted, causing the ice cream to fall off of your spoon and onto your boobs. Tasty. “I mean, if you feel like it. Frankly, I would love to see the looks on everyone’s faces if you said it just like that.”

You could only imagine. Actually, the image was pretty vivid. “Spencer would start stuttering, blushing probably,” you said, imagining the genius’ face. “Derek would probably plug his ears. Wouldn’t wanna hear that coming from his ‘little sister?’ JJ and Garcia would probably start laughing. Hotch would have to hide a smirk, and Rossi would be the only one to actually say something.”

“Oh my god, that’d be great,” she said, finishing her ice cream and placing the empty pint on the table next to her. “But in all seriousness, do it however you feel comfortable. If you wanna make it formal, do that, but if it just happens to slip into conversation and you’re more comfortable that way then do it that way.”

It was always Emily who was speaking the voice of reason in your ear - she was the perfect mix of a good and bad influence. “Then I guess I’ll just let it flow and say it whenever,” you figured.

“Do you feel any better?” she asked. “This is the most relaxed you’ve looked in years, honestly.”

You really did feel better. You’d known who you were for years now, but actually coming to terms with it was a whole different story. You still weren’t fully there. “I do feel better,” you admitted, sitting up and turning towards Emily. “Thanks.”

“No problem, Y/N,” she said, picking up the bottle of wine and shaking it around. “You’re perfect the way you are. Wine?”

“Gods yes,” you replied, holding out a glass for her to fill. “Okay, but Reid’s face if I said it like that might be my new favorite thing.”

“Me too,” she laughed. “Can you give me a heads up if that’s the way you plan on saying it? Because I wanna be there.”

“Absolutely.”


	2. I Prefer...

It had been weeks since you’d told Emily you were gay and you didn’t feel like just popping out of nowhere and saying it, but if talk of sex or significant others happened to come into play, you figured you could say something. “Alright, Pretty Boy,” Derek said, staring over at the genius who was tense as all hell at the moment, “Do you have a special someone in your life? Because you need to learn to relax.”

“How would having a relationship help me relax?” Spencer asked, fiddling with his chopsticks at the dinner table. As they had so many times before, the team sat in one of their favorite restaurants bullshitting about anything and everything that wasn’t work; that was a new stipulation because they had enough of that crap at work. 

JJ reached over, taking the chopsticks from his hands and placing a hair tie around them. For a genius, he wasn’t great with chopsticks. After he mentioned something about feeding yourself with a pair of number two pencils, you got back to the conversation. “I think what Morgan means is if you were in a sexual relationship, you’d be getting laid, which might ease your tension. Or I could give you a back rub. I’m great at those.” In addition to Emily, Spencer was one of the others you were closest with on the team and he did look rather tense lately.

“I think I’ll take that for now,” he laughed. “Not looking to get into a relationship right now.” As you looked at the way his eyes darted under half-lidded eyes, you made a mental note to ask him about that statement later, because apparently there was something going on in his life. 

Morgan would deny it until the cows came home, but he was always one for a little bit of relationship gossip, so he went around the table, asking teammate after teammate if they were involved with anyone. JJ seemed to be hiding something, but wouldn’t say. Emily had just gotten out of a relationship, so she wasn’t into getting involved with anyone. Hotch he didn’t ask, because he had a feeling things weren’t going to well with Hayley at the moment. Of course, he already knew about Penelope and Kevin because Baby Girl told Chocolate Thunder everything, and when he got to Rossi, Rossi immediately told him to back away from the topic; he was not interested in a fourth Mrs. Rossi right now. “Okay, god you’re all boring. What about you Y/N? You got a special man in your life?” 

You didn’t mind the assumption that you were straight, because that’s what you’d portrayed for so long, afraid of what people would actually think, but Emily was right. At least among the team, no one would judge you. Thinking back to the conversation you had with Emily, you decided to throw a wrench into the conversation. “This may come as a surprise to all of considering I haven’t portrayed myself as such but I prefer vagina.”

With a smirk, you looked over to see Emily holding up her hand for a high five. Hotch was at your other side. He tried to suppress a smirk, but couldn’t. “I’m not going to say how I knew that, but I knew.”

“Of course you did,” you sighed. “But tell me, how did you know?”

“You stare at Emily’s ass all the time,” your boss said with a starkness and levity you didn’t normally get from him. 

Turning back toward Emily, you shrugged, and so did she; you couldn’t deny it. She had a great butt. “Well, now I can’t get that image out of my head and I think I want to,” Derek said. “You’re like my sister.”

“You asked,” you said. JJ was laughing to the point of tears across the table, because of everyone else’s reactions to “I prefer vagina.” Spencer had, as you predicted, instantly blushed, stuttering over his words and rambling off statistics about LGBT persons, as well as talking about how scientifically, women’s nether regions were more aesthetically pleasing, so it actually made a lot of sense. 

Penelope was…Penelope. “Okay, so are you single though, because I have this friend who’s always thought you were insanely beautiful, but she assumed you were straight. Can I set you up? Please, please, please?!” 

“If It’s who I think, then yes, but give it a little bit because I still have to figure out a way to tell my parents who are anything but supportive of LGBT people, so let me figure out the hell I’m gonna do that first and then yes…she’s very pretty.” Penelope’s friend Margot was 1000 percent gorgeous - a tattoo artist in town. There might have been a time or two you’d thought about some sexy things with Margot. “Anyone else got anything to say?” you asked. You looked at JJ, who’d barely recovered from her laughing fit, and then rested your gaze on Rossi.

“Well, I did have three Mrs. Rossi’s so I think we know where my tastes lie,” he said without missing a beat. You were pretty sure you scared the waiter away from how loud everyone had started laughing.


End file.
